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As many as 300,000 Central Americans and Haitians in the U.S. are facing deportation after the Trump administration ended protections allowing them to live and work in the U.S. legally, despite warnings from senior U.S. diplomats that it could cause regional instability and prompt a surge in illegal immigration.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, Democratic Congressman Jimmy Gomez warned of the risks of a decision that he said "fits an ongoing pattern of xenophobia that has emanated from the White House.
“Unfortunately, it’s no surprise that Donald Trump has decided to kick out 57,000 Hondurans who have worked, paid taxes, and raised children in the U.S. for decades," Gomez said.

“The decision to end TPS for Honduras fits an ongoing pattern of xenophobia that has emanated from the White House—something that was made explicit when Trump referred to TPS and African nations as ‘shithole countries ’," he continued.

"Hondurans will now be among the hundreds of thousands of TPS recipients from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, and Nepal that will be forcibly torn from their families, jobs, and businesses—only to be sent back to a life of danger and uncertainty ," Gomez said, calling on colleagues in Congress to protect TPS holders by passing the American Promise Act (APA).

The APA seeks to create a path to permanent residency in the U.S. to beneficiaries of the TPS program, as well as the Deferred Enforcement Departure Program. 

Earlier this month, Gomez and other representatives urged Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to renew the TPS program for Honduras in a letter signed by 53 Congress members. 

The letter states that while the U.S. has made "substantial efforts" to help Honduras in its recovery from a series of natural disasters that "left the country devastated" in 1998, "the damage of these cataclysmic events compounded by the residual effects of disease, violence and poverty have resulted in stagnant recovery."

“Conditions simply have not sufficiently improved to safely and productively reintegrate TPS recipients in their home communities," the letter says, demanding that the Trump administration give Honduras "more time to rebuild."
The plight of Hondurans has come to the fore in recent weeks, after a "caravan" of Central Americans travelled across Mexico to the U.S. border to claim asylum, making headlines and drawing the ire of President Donald Trump. 

Trump had vowed to stop the group of asylum seekers from entering the U.S., but so far, at least 158 people have been let into the country to plead their cases for asylum. 

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